J Happiness Stud

DOI 10.1007/s10902-016-9802-5

RESEARCH PAPER

Gratitude and Life Satisfaction in the United States

and Japan

Briana L. Robustelli1 • Mark A. Whisman1

Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Abstract Being grateful has been associated with many positive outcomes, including
greater happiness, positive affect, optimism, and self-esteem. There is limited research,
however, on the associations between gratitude and different domains of life satisfaction
across cultures. The current study examined the associations between gratitude and three
domains of life satisfaction, including satisfaction in relationships, work, and health, and
overall life satisfaction, in the United States and Japan. A total of 945 participants were
drawn from two samples of middle aged and older adults, the Midlife Development in the
United States and the Midlife Development in Japan. There were significant positive
bivariate associations between gratitude and all four measures of life satisfaction. In
addition, after adjusting for demographics, neuroticism, extraversion, and the other mea-
sures of satisfaction, gratitude was uniquely and positively associated with satisfaction
with relationships and life overall but not with satisfaction with work or health. Further-
more, results indicated that women and individuals who were more extraverted and lived in
the United States were more grateful and individuals with less than a high school degree
were less grateful. The findings from this study suggest that gratitude is uniquely associ-
ated with specific domains of life satisfaction. Results are discussed with respect to future
research and the design and implementation of gratitude interventions, particularly when
including individuals from different cultures.

Keywords Gratitude
United States
Japan
Life satisfaction
Relationship satisfaction

Cross cultural

& Briana L. Robustelli

briana.robustelli@colorado.edu
1
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, 345 UCB, Boulder,
CO 80309-0345, USA

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 B. L. Robustelli, M. A. Whisman

1 Introduction

Emmons and McCullough (2003) define gratitude as ‘‘the perception of a positive personal
outcome, not necessarily deserved or earned, that is due to the actions of another person’’
(p. 377). Definitions of gratitude used across studies are generally variations on this theme,
describing gratitude as crediting someone or something other than oneself for positive
events. Being grateful, conceptualized either as an emotion or a trait, seems to have several
beneficial consequences. The current study examined the association between gratitude and
several domains of life satisfaction, including satisfaction with work, relationships, and
health, as well as life overall, in the United States and Japan.

1.1 Gratitude and Indices of Well-Being

People who have high levels of trait gratitude tend to be happy, optimistic, and have higher
self-esteem (Kong et al. 2014; McCullough et al. 2004). Gratitude has also been found to
correlate negatively with motivation for revenge, avoidance motivation, and the perception
that adverse events are permanent and ubiquitous (Szcześniak and Soares 2011). Having a
grateful disposition is also associated with positive affect, prosocial behaviors, and spiri-
tuality (Mccullough et al. 2002). In addition, grateful people tend to be more agreeable,
extraverted, conscientious, open, and less neurotic (Wood et al. 2008a), and grateful adults
have higher levels of well-being even when controlling for forgiveness and the Big Five
factor personality traits (Hill and Allemand 2011). Trait gratitude is also negatively
associated with mental health problems. For example, one study examined a sample of
college students who had at least one parent with a serious illness and found that students
with high dispositional gratitude experienced less anxiety and depression than students
with lower levels of dispositional gratitude (Stoeckel et al. 2014).
In addition, some studies have been successful in using interventions to increase grat-
itude and, as a result, increase subjective well-being (Emmons and McCullough 2003).
Gratitude manipulations have been found to increase life satisfaction, positive affect, and
subjective well-being and decrease materialism (Lambert et al. 2009; Watkins et al. 2003).
Overall, results from past research create a clear picture of the positive associations and
effects of gratitude on life satisfaction and well-being across a variety of populations.

1.2 The Association Between Gratitude and Specific Domains of Life

Satisfaction

Although prior studies have demonstrated that gratitude is associated with overall life
satisfaction (Hill and Allemand 2011; Wood et al. 2008a), very few studies have examined
specific domains of life satisfaction and no studies, to our knowledge, have evaluated the
incremental associations between gratitude and a variety of satisfaction domains (i.e.,
whether gratitude is associated with life satisfaction in one domain when statistically
controlling for life satisfaction in other domains).
Gratitude has been most commonly examined in association with satisfaction in social
relationships, and the results from these studies suggest that gratitude is positively asso-
ciated with satisfaction across several types of social relationships. For example, Froh et al.
(2009) found a correlation between gratitude and family support, friend support, and life
satisfaction in a college population. The authors also found that individuals who reported
higher levels of gratitude had more relationship fulfillment and fewer physical symptoms,

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such as headaches, stomach aches, or nausea than those with lower levels of gratitude.
Another study found that participants who expressed gratitude to a friend during an
exercise were more likely to feel comfortable in voicing relationship concerns and to report
increased positive perceptions of a close friend 3 weeks later, compared to participants
who engaged in an unrelated positive interaction (Lambert and Fincham 2011).
Other studies have documented a positive association between gratitude and marital
adjustment and satisfaction (Algoe and Way 2014; Gordon et al. 2012). For example,
Gordon et al. (2012) found that individuals who felt appreciated were more grateful to their
partners and more responsive to their partner’s needs compared to individuals who did not
feel appreciated. Individuals who were more grateful and appreciative of their partners
were also more likely to stay in the relationship 9 months later. In addition, people who
reported being highly appreciative of their partners were rated by outside observers as
more responsive and committed. The association between gratitude and relationship sat-
isfaction may even have a heritable component. One study found that variations in a gene
that has been associated with oxytocin levels (a social or bonding hormone) were also
associated with quality and frequency of expressions of gratitude and global romantic
relationship satisfaction (Algoe and Way 2014). Overall, gratitude appears to have a strong
association with relationship adjustment and satisfaction, especially with respect to
romantic relationships.
Relative to the research on gratitude and relationship satisfaction, which has shown a
robust link, there has been little research on the association between gratitude and life
satisfaction in other domains, such as satisfaction with health, work, and finances. In
addition, past studies have not examined the specificity of associations between gratitude
and different domains of life satisfaction. Specificity analyses could build on past studies
and reveal something about the nature of gratitude. For example, are people who are more
grateful also generally more satisfied with their lives or is this particularly true of only
some domains, such as satisfaction with their relationships? The current study aimed to
build on the results from past studies that found associations between gratitude and specific
domains of life satisfaction by (a) replicating the results regarding relationship satisfaction;
(b) expanding the domains of life satisfaction to include satisfaction with health and work;
and (c) examining the specificity of any observed associations between gratitude and
specific domains of life satisfaction.

1.3 Cross-Cultural Research on the Association Between Gratitude and Life

Satisfaction

Whereas much of the research on gratitude and life satisfaction has been conducted in
individualist cultures such as the United States, only a few studies have examined gratitude
and life satisfaction in collectivist cultures (Chen and Li 2007; Chen et al. 2014; Sun et al.
2014). Specifically, gratitude has been found to be associated with sports team cohesion
and life satisfaction in Taiwan (Chen et al. 2014) and social support, school well-being,
and marital satisfaction in China (Chen and Li 2007; Sun et al. 2014). However, other
domains of life satisfaction have not been included in past studies examining the associ-
ation between gratitude and life satisfaction domains in collectivist cultures. In addition,
we are not aware of any studies that have examined whether the strength of the associations
between gratitude and domains of life satisfaction vary across cultures.
Cross-cultural differences in the benefits of gratitude is an important topic to study
because of cultural differences that exist between collectivist and individualist countries,
especially when it comes to the importance of social relationships. The current study used

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samples from the United States and Japan because these are economically similar but
culturally different countries. In collectivist cultures, like Japan, pride is generally dis-
couraged and success is measured by one’s ability to give and receive assistance and
ultimately to promote social harmony, whereas in individualist cultures, like the United
States, autonomy and independence are generally valued along with personal achievement
(Kitayama et al. 2000). One study comparing children in the United States and Japan found
that children in Japan had a significantly greater propensity to experience guilt and children
in the United States showed a greater propensity to experience pride (Furukawa et al.
2012). These past findings suggest that reported mean levels of gratitude and the associ-
ations between gratitude and specific domains of life satisfaction may differ in Japan and
the United States, although how they may differ is an open question.

1.4 Alternative Explanations for the Association Between Gratitude and Life
Satisfaction

In addition to evaluating cultural differences in the association between gratitude and

specific domains of life satisfaction, another aim of this study was to rule out potential
confounds of this association. Prior studies have found associations between demographic
variables (such as age, gender, and education) and life satisfaction and gratitude (Calasanti
1996; Gordon et al. 2011; Kashdan et al. 2009; Meeks and Murrell 2015). For example,
studies that are consistent with Socioemotional Selectivity Theory find that relative to
young and middle aged adults, older adults report higher levels of life satisfaction and
gratitude (Carstensen et al. 2003) and lower levels of regret (Bjälkebring et al. 2013).
Therefore, it is important to account for the possible confounding associations between
demographic variables and gratitude and life satisfaction. In addition, past studies have
found that some personality traits, particularly neuroticism and extraversion, are associated
with life satisfaction (Heller et al. 2004), subjective well-being, (Costa and McCrae 1980;
Diener et al. 1985) and trait gratitude (Mccullough et al. 2002; Wood et al. 2008b). As a
result, neuroticism and extraversion are potential alternative explanations for any associ-
ations found between gratitude and domains of life satisfaction. Some past studies
examining the correlates of gratitude have adjusted for neuroticism and extraversion for
this reason (Hill and Allemand 2011; Wood et al. 2008a). Similarly, we evaluated whether
the associations between gratitude and domains of life satisfaction were incremental to any
shared association with these personality traits.

1.5 The Current Study

We hypothesized that three domains of life satisfaction—health, work, and relationships—

and overall life satisfaction would all be associated with gratitude in middle-aged and older
adults from the United States and Japan, and that these associations would remain sta-
tistically significant when adjusting for demographics (age, gender, and education) and
personality characteristics (neuroticism and extraversion). We made this prediction
because most domains of life satisfaction that have been examined in prior research—such
as family support, friend support, and romantic relationship satisfaction, in addition to
overall life satisfaction, school well-being, and sport team cohesion—have been associated
with gratitude. Given these past findings, we hypothesized that a similar pattern would
exist for the associations between gratitude and satisfaction with health and work, which
have been previously unexplored. We also hypothesized that each domain of life satis-
faction would be incrementally associated with gratitude given that each domain is at least

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partially unique and would likely capture a distinct part of the variance in the association
between gratitude and overall life satisfaction. In addition, we hypothesized that there
would be differences between the United States and Japan in the mean levels of gratitude
and domains of life satisfaction and in the magnitude of the associations between these
variables. Specifically, because the concept of gratitude is more consistent with social
cohesion than individual achievement, we predicted that relative to people in the United
States, people in Japan would report higher levels of gratitude. Furthermore, we conducted
exploratory analyses evaluating the relative strengths in associations between gratitude and
domains of life satisfaction in the United States and Japan, although we did not make any
specific predictions as a result of the limited literature examining the associations among
these variables across cultures.

2 Method

2.1 Participants

Participants were drawn from samples of middle aged and older adults from the United
States and Tokyo, Japan. The American sample consisted of married respondents from the
Biomarker Project of the Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS; Ryff et al.
2013) which was collected during the follow-up (MIDUS II) that took place from 2004 to
2006. The participants were recruited during the first stage of the project (MIDUS) using
random-digit-dialing with oversampling from five cities (Boston, Atlanta, Chicago,
Phoenix, and San Francisco) and an additional oversampling from Milwaukie for the
follow-up. The sample included in this analysis consisted of the 371 married individuals
with children who completed all of the life satisfaction items. The Japanese sample was
drawn from the Midlife Development in Japan (MIDJA; Ryff et al. 2011) study. A
probability sample of Japanese-speaking adults from the Tokyo metropolitan area were
selected for the study and data were collected in 2008. The Japanese sample included 574

Table 1 Demographic characteristics of sample participants from the United States and Japan
Demographic variable United States (n = 371) Japan (n = 574)

Gender
Men 203 295
Women 168 279
Age (years)
Mean 56 56
Standard deviation 11.37 13.18
Range 34–83 30–79
Education
Less than high school diploma (%) 3 13
High school diploma or GED (%) 21 29
Some college or associates degree (%) 28 24
Bachelors degree or higher (%) 48 34

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married respondents with children who completed all of the life satisfaction items. See
Table 1 for demographic information from both samples.

2.2 Measures

Gratitude was assessed using two items taken from a longer measure used in McCullough
et al. (2002). Both items were answered on a 7-point scale, where 1 = strongly disagree
and 7 = strongly agree. The first item asked about being thankful for what one has in life
and the second item asked about being grateful to a variety of people. The two items were
correlated in participants from the United States, r = .53, p \ .001, and Japan, r = .86,
p \ .001.
Life Satisfaction across domains was assessed using items from the life satisfaction
scale taken from Prenda and Lachman (2001). The items assessed satisfaction across the
domains of work, finances, health, relationship with child(ren), and relationship with
spouse/partner, as well as overall satisfaction with life. Each was measured using a single
item that was rated on an 11-point scale, where 0 = worst possible and 10 = the best
possible. Similar single item measures have been used to assess life-satisfaction (Campbell
et al. 1976) and subjective-well being (Diener 1984; Sandvik et al. 1993) and have high
correlations with multi-item measures of life satisfaction and good test–retest reliability up
to 8 months later. Specifically, a study estimating the reliability of single-item life satis-
faction measures in four large probability samples, which took into account occasion-
specific changes in the measures over time, found that reliabilities varied from .68 to .74,
with a mean of .72 (Lucas and Donnellan 2012). With respect to validity, ratings of life
satisfaction were positively and significantly (all ps \ .001) associated with the Satisfac-
tion with Life Scale (Diener et al. 1985) in the current samples, with correlations ranging
from .29 to .41 for individual domains and a correlation of .53 for life overall in the
MIDUS II sample and correlations ranging from .24 to .42 for individual domains and a
correlation of .62 for life overall in the MIDJA sample.
Neuroticism was assessed using a four item measure. Participants were asked how
much ‘‘moody’’, ‘‘worrying’’, ‘‘nervous’’, and ‘‘calm’’ described them on a four point
scale from 1 = a lot to 4 = not at all. These items were developed using existing per-
sonality trait lists and inventories, and adjectives that were used the most consistently in
the literature and had the highest factor loadings were selected (Lachman and Weaver
1997). This measure had been found to have good construct validity (Mroczek and Kolarz
1998) and significantly correlates with the neuroticism scale from the NEO Personality
Inventory Short Form (NEO-PI-SF) (see http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/psych/
lachman/pdfs/revised-midi-scales.pdf), which is a frequently used measure of the Five
Factor Model of personality. The calm item was weakly associated with the other three
items in the MIDJA sample and so it was not included in this study. An average of the
three remaining items was calculated, with higher scores indicated higher neuroticism.
Cronbach’s alpha for the 3-item measure was .74 for the United States and .68 for the
Japanese sample.
Extraversion was assessed using a five item measure. Participants were asked how much
‘‘outgoing’’, ‘‘friendly’’, ‘‘lively’’, ‘‘active’’, and ‘‘talkative’’ described them on a four point
scale from 1 = a lot to 4 = not at all. All items were reverse coded and then averaged so
that higher scores indicated higher standing on the scale. Similar to neuroticism, the scale
was developed using existing personality trait lists and inventories (Lachman and Weaver
1997) and it significantly correlates with the extraversion scale from the NEO-PI-SF (see
http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/psych/lachman/pdfs/revised-midi-scales.pdf).

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The five items showed high internal consistency in the MIDUS II (a = .76) and MIDJA
(a = .84) samples.
Education was measured using a single item assessing participants’ highest educational
attainment. Participants’ educational attainment was dummy coded using 4 categories: less
than GED or high school degree; high school degree; some college; bachelor’s degree or
a professional/advanced degree. Bachelor’s degree or professional/advanced degree was
set as the reference group.

2.3 Analyses

To rule out the possibility of including redundant subcomponents in the model, a principle
component analysis was performed on the six measures of satisfaction [relationship with
child(ren), relationship with spouse/partner, work, finances, health, and life overall] on
each of three samples: United States, Japan, and the two samples combined. Promax
rotation was used in these analyses because we expected the measures to correlate with one
another.
To examine whether there were mean differences between countries in gratitude and life
satisfaction, we computed independent samples t tests. Next, generalized linear models
(GLM) were used to test for bivariate and multivariate associations between gratitude and
different measures of life satisfaction. To test whether the associations between gratitude
and measures of life satisfaction were incremental to any shared associations with
demographic variables and personality traits, these models were run a second time, sta-
tistically adjusting for demographics (age, gender, education, and country), neuroticism,
and extraversion. To test for differences between Japan and the United States in the
strength of the association between gratitude and the measures of life satisfaction, Satis-
faction 9 Country interaction terms were added to the models; satisfaction scores were
mean deviated (i.e., centered) prior to creating the interaction terms.
Finally, because the two items from the gratitude scale assess different targets of
gratitude, specifically ‘‘I have so much in life to be thankful for’’ (thankful for) and ‘‘I am
grateful to a wide variety of people’’ (grateful to), we tested whether these items showed
different patterns of association with the different measures of life satisfaction. Specifi-
cally, we examined whether the ‘‘grateful to’’ item would more strongly correlate with
relationship satisfaction and ‘‘thankful for’’ would correlate with all areas of satisfaction.
Because some of the analyses conducted in this study were exploratory, a more conser-
vative alpha of .01 was used for all analyses to reduce the likelihood of spurious results.

3 Results

Results from the principal components analyses were similar in the United States, Japan,
and the two samples combined (see Fig. 1 for the results from the combined sample
analysis). Satisfaction with relationship with child(ren) and relationship with
spouse/partner mapped onto the first component and satisfaction with work and finances
mapped onto the second component. Satisfaction with one’s health and life overall did not
map onto either component strongly. Based on these findings, a composite measure was
created for relationships by calculating a mean score of satisfaction with relationship with
child(ren) and spouse/partner. A second composite measure for work was created by

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Variables Principle Components Map

Key
V1 Health
V2 Work
V3 Finances
V4 Relationship
with Child(ren)
V5 Relationship
with
Spouse/Partner

V6 Life Overall

Fig. 1 Principal components analysis of the 6 areas of satisfaction

calculating a mean score of satisfaction with work and finances. Satisfaction with health
and life overall were kept as separate measures.
There were significant differences between the United States and Japan on mean levels
of gratitude and satisfaction across the domains of life satisfaction and in overall life
satisfaction: compared to participants from Japan, participants from the United States
reported higher mean levels of gratitude and satisfaction. Means, standard deviations,
results from the t tests, and effect sizes [Cohen’s (1988) d] can be found in Table 2.
According to Cohen’s conventions for interpreting effect sizes, differences in means
between the United States and Japan on gratitude, relationship satisfaction, work

Table 2 Descriptive information for gratitude and life satisfaction variables

Measure United States Japan t d

Mean SD Mean SD

Gratitude 6.31 0.74 5.59 1.09 11.38** .74

Relationship satisfactiona 8.36 1.44 7.46 1.56 8.88** .58
Work satisfactionb 7.23 1.74 5.78 1.96 11.58** .75
Health satisfaction 7.53 1.51 6.40 1.88 9.75** .64
Life satisfaction 8.05 1.41 6.58 1.86 13.00** .85
* p \ .01; ** p \ .001
a b
Average score of satisfaction with child(ren) and spouse/partner. Average score of satisfaction with
work and finances

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satisfaction, and health satisfaction demonstrated medium effect sizes (i.e., d [ .50),
whereas differences in means for overall life satisfaction demonstrated a large effect (i.e.,
d [ .80).
Results from the separate GLMs conducted to test the bivariate associations between
gratitude and each measure of life satisfaction indicated that gratitude was significantly and
positively associated with satisfaction with relationships, work, health, and life overall (see
Table 3). In addition, the associations between gratitude and each measure of life satis-
faction, except for health satisfaction, remained statistically significant when adjusting for
demographics (age, gender, education attainment, country), neuroticism, and extraversion;
these results are available upon request from the first author.
To test whether gratitude was uniquely associated with the domains of life satisfaction
(relationships, work, health) and overall life satisfaction, the measures of life satisfaction
were entered simultaneously in a single GLM predicting gratitude. Results from this
multivariate analysis can be found in Table 3. Results showed that gratitude was uniquely
associated with relationship satisfaction and overall life satisfaction: higher levels of
gratitude were associated with higher levels of relationship satisfaction and overall life
satisfaction (Model 1). These associations remained statistically significant when adjusting
for demographics, neuroticism, and extraversion (Model 2). In addition, bivariate analyses
between the covariates and gratitude showed that women and individuals who lived in the
United States and were more extraverted reported being more grateful and individuals with
less than a high school degree reported being less grateful (see Table 3).

Table 3 Multivariate associations between gratitude and measures of life satisfaction

Variable ra Model 1 Model 2

B SE prb B SE prb

Relationshipsc .35** .11** .02 .16 .08** .02 .12

Workd .29** -.01 .02 .01 -.04 .02 .06
Health .20** -.01 .02 .02 -.04 .02 .06
Life overall .45** .22** .02 .29 .16** .02 .22
Gender (women) .16** .33** .06 .18
Age .00 .00 .00 .00
Less than high schoole -.14** -.22 .11 .06
High school degreee -.04 -.17 .08 .08
Some collegee .04 -.11 .07 .05
Country (United States) .35** .17** .03 .16
Neuroticism -.07 -.08 .04 .06
Extraversion .38** .28** .04 .20
*p \ .01; ** p \ .001
a
Bivariate associations between the variable and gratitude. b Partial correlations between the variable and
gratitude, adjusting for all other variables in the model. c Average score of satisfaction with child(ren) and
spouse/partner. d Average score of satisfaction with work and finances. e Variables were dummy coded with
Bachelor’s degree or professional/advanced degree set as the reference group. Model 1 includes only the
four measures of life satisfaction. Model 2 includes the four measures of life satisfaction and all the
covariates listed in the table. For Model 1, F(4, 940) = 68.29, R2 = 0.23. For Model 2, F(12, 932) = 35,
R2 = 0.31

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When the Satisfaction 9 Country interaction terms were added to the models to test for
differences in the associations between gratitude and the measures of life satisfaction
between the two countries, none of the interaction terms were statistically significant (all
p [ .05). This suggests that the associations between different measures of life satisfaction
and gratitude were of similar magnitude in the American and Japanese samples.
Finally, results for the separate analyses for the two individual gratitude items
(‘‘thankful for’’ and ‘‘grateful to’’) were nearly identical to those presented for the com-
posite measure of gratitude; these results are available upon request from the first author.
Only one difference emerged, which was that ‘‘grateful to’’ was not significantly associated
with work satisfaction when controlling for demographics and personality traits.

4 Discussion

We hypothesized that gratitude would be associated with three domains of life satisfaction
(work, health, relationships) and overall life satisfaction in people from the United States
and Japan. Consistent with our hypotheses, the bivariate associations between gratitude and
the four measures of life satisfaction were all statistically significant, such that people who
reported higher levels of gratitude also reported higher levels of satisfaction in each
domain. These findings build on prior research by demonstrating that gratitude is associ-
ated with domains of life satisfaction other than relationship satisfaction, including work
and health satisfaction, which have not been previously examined. Three of the four
associations (relationships, work, and life overall) also remained statistically significant
even when adjusting for demographics, neuroticism, and extraversion.
In contrast, gratitude was not incrementally associated with each of the measures of life
satisfaction as hypothesized. Instead, gratitude was uniquely associated only with rela-
tionship satisfaction and overall life satisfaction. The unique associations between grati-
tude and relationship satisfaction and overall life satisfaction remained statistically
significant when additionally controlling for demographics, neuroticism, and extraversion.
These results show an interesting specificity pattern that has not been directly tested in past
studies. The pattern of results from the current study suggests that the experience of
gratitude may be more closely related to satisfaction with relationships and life overall
compared to satisfaction with health and work. Prior studies have found a robust associ-
ation between gratitude and life satisfaction or well-being in a range of populations and
cultures (Chan 2011; Emmons and McCullough 2003; Hill and Allemand 2011; Toussaint
and Friedman 2009). Other studies have found associations between gratitude and social
relationships (Algoe and Way 2014; Froh et al. 2009; Gordon et al. 2012). One study found
that trait gratitude levels correlated with satisfaction with one’s relationship with family
and friends in a college population (Froh et al. 2009), and several past studies have also
found an association between gratitude and romantic relationship satisfaction, respon-
siveness to partner’s needs, and commitment to the relationship (Algoe and Way 2014;
Gordon et al. 2012). The current study extends previous research by demonstrating that the
associations between gratitude and satisfaction with relationships and life overall are
incremental to (a) satisfaction in other domains; and (b) demographic variables, neuroti-
cism, and extraversion.
The findings from the current study suggest that there may be a particularly important
association between gratitude, social relationships, and overall life satisfaction that is not
found in other domains of satisfaction, as gratitude was not uniquely associated with

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satisfaction with work and health. Past studies have proposed a variety of ways that
gratitude is related to satisfaction with social relationships and life overall that might help
understand the current study’s results (Algoe et al. 2008, 2013; Gino and Schweitzer 2008).
For example, gratitude may facilitate relationship formation and maintenance. In a study
examining sorority gift giving, gratitude expressed for gifts predicted future positive
relationship outcomes between the sorority sisters (Algoe et al. 2008). Expressing gratitude
seems to have an especially powerful impact on romantic relationship quality (Algoe et al.
2013). In this study, a person was asked to express gratitude to their partner for something
he or she had done. The responsiveness of the partner receiving the expression of gratitude
predicted relationship satisfaction 6 months later. The better the expression of gratitude
was received by the partner, the higher relationship satisfaction was at the follow-up.
Another study found that feeling grateful increases one’s ability to trust and be receptive to
advice (Gino and Schweitzer 2008).
Other studies have proposed that how people function in their social relationships and
aspects of social support may mediate the association between gratitude and overall life
satisfaction (Chen et al. 2014; Kong et al. 2014; Lin and Yeh 2014). Specifically, being
grateful has been found to increase use of active coping styles and social support, which
leads to increased overall well-being in the United States (Lin and Yeh 2014) and China
(Kong et al. 2014). In these studies, gratitude levels fully mediated the association between
social support and life satisfaction. In addition, higher levels of gratitude predicted higher
levels of self-esteem and life satisfaction. Gratitude has also been found to be associated
with higher quality social relationships and social support, which in turn is associated with
higher levels of school well-being (Sun et al. 2014). The association between gratitude and
life satisfaction has been found to be partly mediated by athletic team cohesion in a sample
of adolescent athletes in Taiwan (Chen et al. 2014). The authors suggested that being
grateful leads to better relationships among team members and subsequently higher levels
of life satisfaction for the athletes. Consistent with the results from the current study, past
research suggests that being grateful is positively associated with relationship quality and
social support, which may influence life satisfaction and increase well-being.
Results from the current study showed that work satisfaction, which is a combination of
satisfaction with work and finances, and health satisfaction were not incrementally asso-
ciated with gratitude after adjusting for satisfaction with relationships and life overall.
Given that the definition of gratitude refers to positive events that are not necessarily
deserved or earned but due to the actions of another person or force, it may be that
gratitude is not as strongly associated with how individuals think about their satisfaction
with their work compared to their satisfaction with their relationships or life overall.
Specifically, people may be more likely to believe they have earned their work and
financial success through their own efforts and not because of the actions of others. A
similar conceptualization may apply to health. People may not believe their good or bad
health is a result of the actions of others in the same way that they think about their
satisfaction with their relationships and life overall. Results remained nearly identical when
the two gratitude items were analyzed separately, suggesting that these results are not an
artifact of measuring only the social aspect of gratitude, being grateful to other people
compared to being thankful in general.
In addition to testing the associations between gratitude and domains of life satisfaction,
we also hypothesized that given the cultural differences between the United States and
Japan, there would be significantly different patterns in the results between the countries.
Specifically, we hypothesized that relative to the United States, mean levels of gratitude
would be significantly higher in adults from Japan, given that collectivist cultures tend to

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value social cohesion over pride and individual achievement. In addition, we conducted
exploratory analyses to test for differences in the strength of the associations between
gratitude and life satisfaction in Japan and the United States. Mean scores of gratitude and
all four measures of satisfaction did differ between countries, but the means were all higher
in the United States, which is opposite of what we had predicted. Diener et al. (1995) found
that in Pacific Rim countries such as Japan, it is culturally desirable to suppress both
positive and negative emotions so this may result in lower ratings on positive constructs
such as gratitude and the domains of satisfaction. Results from the study further showed
that the associations between gratitude and domains of life satisfaction and overall life
satisfaction did not differ by country but rather showed a similar pattern of association in
the United States and Japan. This is an interesting finding given the different cultural
beliefs about a variety of similar emotions such as pride and guilt (Furukawa et al. 2012).
In reviewing the results of this study, several strengths and limitations should be taken
into consideration. Strengths include the use of samples from both the United States and
Japan and the focus on domains of life satisfaction that have not been studied, to our
knowledge, in past studies. One limitation of the study is that most of the measures used
were brief versions of longer measures. As a result, all of the satisfaction variables were
measured using single items and gratitude was a composite of two items. The small
number of items is likely to provide a less reliable measure of the constructs relative to
longer, multi-item measures. Although single item relationship satisfaction measures have
been found to correlate highly with longer measures (Sharpley 1982) and single item
measures of life satisfaction have been found to be highly stable and reliable across time
(Schimmack and Oishi 2005), the use of longer, multi-item measures of gratitude and
domains of life satisfaction would provide a stronger test of the association between these
constructs.
Another limitation of the study has to do with the study participants. In order to examine
life satisfaction across multiple domains, the sample used in the current study only
included participants who were married with children. Even though this limits the gen-
eralizability of the results, the current study focuses on satisfaction across multiple rela-
tionship domains that would not have been possible had we included people who were not
married or did not have children. Future studies should aim to build on the results of this
study and assess associations between gratitude and different areas of life satisfaction
across a broader range of social relationships, which would allow for the use of a more
heterogeneous sample. In addition, the current study is based on samples from a variety of
locations in the United States but only one city (Tokyo) in Japan. Even though the two
samples had very similar demographic characteristics and showed similar patterns of
results, future studies should aim to use samples that are better matched on demographic
characteristics such as urbanicity.
Another limitation of the study is that the results are based on data from one time point,
so it is impossible to make any conclusions about causality. Future studies should inves-
tigate the associations among gratitude and domains of life satisfaction using a longitudinal
design. It would then be possible to test if higher levels of gratitude are associated with
increases in life satisfaction in specific domains over time or whether higher levels of life
satisfaction are associated with increases in gratitude over time.
The findings that gratitude is significantly and positively associated with several
domains of life satisfaction and overall life satisfaction in both the United States and Japan
support continued investigation on the potential benefits of gratitude interventions across
cultures, although caution may be needed particularly when conducting interventions in
collectivist cultures. Several studies have proposed that individuals in collectivist cultures

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may experience a mix of gratitude and indebtedness in response to acts of kindness and
generosity of others (Furukawa et al. 2012; Kim et al. 2006). In general, individuals in
Japan and South Korea are more prone to experience self-conscious emotions such as
shame and guilt than are individuals in the United States (Furukawa et al. 2012). In
addition, Asian Americans are less likely to want or to seek out social support in response
to stressors because it may cause others to view them as a burden and may negatively affect
social networks (Kim et al. 2006). Therefore, expressing gratitude may cultivate feelings of
indebtedness by reminding the expresser of what he or she may owe the other individual
and that he or she may be perceived as a burden. One study had participants from the
United States and South Korea either express gratitude, perform kind acts, or engage in a
neutral activity (Layous et al. 2013). Participants from the United States reported increases
in well-being after expressing gratitude and performing kind acts, whereas participants
from South Korea only reported significant increases in well-being after performing kind
acts. This study and others suggest that interventions that increase trait level gratitude
versus encouraging the expression of gratitude may result in greater increases in well-
being. Being generally grateful for what one has in life may be more consistent with
collectivist values such as social cohesion and being humble and may not increase feeling
of indebtedness. Interventions that aim to increase expressions of gratitude through kind
actions versus verbal or written expressions of gratitude may be more effective across
cultures as well.
This is the first study known to us to examine the specificity of associations between
gratitude and domains of life satisfaction in samples of adults from Japan and the United
States. Future research should continue to investigate cultural differences in the cross-
sectional and longitudinal associations between gratitude and domains of life satisfaction
and how interventions can be used effectively across cultures to increase gratitude, which
may in turn result in increases in life satisfaction across different domains.

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